This summer we cultivated no Musquée de Provence pumpkins in Rosslyn’s gardens. No bulging-but-flattened fruit, watermelon green until ripening like a September sunset, veiled with a waxy glaze (until rubbed, then terracota orange) and exuberant lobes swollen between pronounced ribs. It was an inadvertent omission, and I’m vowing that next summer will be different.
The still-green Musquée de Provence above was photographed by me on September 22, 2020 as we were adapting to pandemic living. Great looking fruit. Right?
New to me that season, I’d stumbled across the variety during the long, languid spring that we spent quarantining at Rosslyn. I no longer recollect where/how I stumbled across this unique specimen, the dark orange flesh of which promised a flavor profile described variously as moderately sweet, blending sweet potato and chestnut, with a spicy aroma. And it promised to be a handsome display flanking the limestone steps up to Rosslyn’s front entrance.
It was exciting to watch the oversized fruit grow and grow and grow… By Adirondack autumn they were massive. I couldn’t wait to taste them!
But a couple of days absent from the garden conspired with an early hard frost, and the beautiful Musquée de Provence pumpkins spoiled. I took several frozen behemoths into the house to defrost, but they had cracked during freezing and began bubbling as they thawed. Pungent pumpkin “meat” began to ooze from the cracks. I surmised that the fruit was fermenting?
Discouraged, I composted them and vowed to order more seeds and try again the following year. And then forgot. Not once. Not twice. Four years in a row I’ve neglected to try again.
But next year will be different. Better order seeds now!
What do you think?